Associated Press September 18, 2002
Officials: Tubing May Have Iraq Link
BY GEORGE JAHN
Aluminum tubing sent from China to Jordan may have been destined for Iraq to be used in enriching uranium for atomic weapons, international nuclear officials and a former U.N. weapons inspector say.
The reports could suggest that contrary to its denials, Iraq harbors nuclear ambitions but hasn't been able to buy the uranium it needs on the open market. On the other hand, some experts say the data isn't complete enough to make a definite judgment of Iraq's intentions.
The shipment of aluminum tubing was reported by officials working for international organizations in Western Europe in interviews last week and Tuesday. The tubes were found in Jordan in the last 14 months, said one of the officials. All of them spoke on condition of anonymity. Authorities in both China and Jordan denied there was any such shipment, however.
The Bush administration alleges thousands of pieces of such tubing have been intercepted en route to Iraq. Administration experts believe the material was being sent to Iraq to build centrifuges for developing nuclear weapons.
The centrifuges are high-speed rotating drums that take raw uranium and separate it into different varieties of the element. A heavier form, which is not useful in nuclear weapons, accumulates toward the outside of the spinning drum and is siphoned off. The lighter form, which is used in nuclear bombs, tends to stay in the middle.
Because the process is highly inefficient, it requires hundreds or thousands of linked centrifuges to concentrate the light form of uranium sufficiently to be used in an atomic bomb.
In the past, Iraq has used heavy-gauge aluminum tubing to build centrifuges for refining raw uranium into fuel for a nuclear weapon. Those devices were destroyed during the 1990s by U.N. weapons inspectors.
If Iraq is seeking to rebuild centrifuges for a nuclear program, it could indicate it lacks an outside source of weapons-grade nuclear fuel.
Garry Dillon, who went to Iraq as a weapons inspector in the 1990s, said the lack of information from the Bush administration makes it difficult to determine the significance of the alleged Iraqi attempts to ship in aluminum tubes.
"Aluminum tubes come in all shapes and forms, from crutches to centrifuge" parts, Dillon said from London. "Nobody has enough information to decide what was the objective of this piping."
Because the material must be spun repeatedly by hundreds of centrifuges, Iraq would need "miles" of such aluminum tubing, Dillon said.
Tim Brown of the Global Security.org, a nongovernment nuclear monitoring group based in Alexandria, Va., said the centrifuges Iraq once used spin at speeds of thousands of revolutions per minute. He described their appearance as similar to "spinning Coke cans ... the size of two wastepaper baskets."
One of the two nuclear officials who spoke to The Associated Press said the tubing intercepted in Jordan fits a profile that would raise alarm bells in Washington, but added it was not clear if U.S. officials were referring to that shipment.
"The end user was never officially identified," the official told AP. "But this may be one of the shipments they are referring to."
President Bush touched on the aluminum tube shipments in a speech to the United Nations last week, warning that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed a threat to the world. While asking for international support, he suggested the United States was prepared to confront Iraq alone.
Baghdad on Tuesday announced it would allow the return of U.N. weapons inspectors. But the United States dismissed the offer as a tactic meant to split the Security Council, where the administration has been lobbying for a resolution that would authorize force against Iraq.
One U.S.-based expert said Bush administration officials have told him of at least two attempts to secure aluminum tubing in the past 14 months. The expert, who has close ties to the administration and formerly worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor Iraq's nuclear program, spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
He said he had been consulted over the past year by a government other than the United States for his opinion on a shipment of aluminum tubing apparently suspected of having been ordered by Baghdad. He said the government divulged no details on the find.
Copyright 2002 Associated Press
